One Bad Apple's Bullying Portrayal
Alright, this seems to be one of the essays that you guys wanted to see most, along with the Dragon Quest one. So, why not make it essays on all of the MLP episodes that I don't like, specifically regarding to why I don't like them. And yes, Why I Hate Putting Your Hoof Down will count towards this. I'm going to say this right now. If it wasn't for the song Babs Seed, One Bad Apple would be an animated atrocity. That and the fact that every single bullying episode goes through this route. It's the standard, and that really really bothers me. The standard is bad. The standard is wrong. I don't know how else to put it. I wasn't judging this episode towards "the standard" I was judging it towards a quality standard. I may have pressed it a little harder because a lot of my hatred towards the episode results around this episode type in general. And yes, I guess I should go through my own experience with bullying. Yes, this episode is insulting towards the people who told their parents about their bullies, and their parents could not or would not do jack shit to stop their bullying problem. You know, kind of like what probably would have happened if Applejack was told that someone escaping a bullying situation was actively causing bullying. I'm one of the guys who had their parents do jack shit. Actually, my parents did do something. They waited until I had given up hope that they'd do something on behalf and I got physically hurt by my bullies to take action, and then they blamed me for not telling them about it. But as we've established in my Seahorse Seashell Party and Chicken Little reviews, my parents were shit at parenting. So I guess we should disregard personal experience. Just be known that it does happen. We have parents who are shit at parenting. Teachers only concerned with getting their students to pass standardized tests and nothing else, etc. We don't have to bring up incidents that you may or may not know about the shows the "zero tolerance" attitude real-world schooling cares about bullying, do we. But it's a cartoon it doesn't have to be "realistic" unless, you know, they're dealing with real-world, touchy, and possibly dangerous scenarios; in that case, realism is kinda important and you cannot grant leeway with things like them. Alright, let's settle on the facts. Babs came to the Apple Farm from Manehattan to escape her own bullying situation and get some relief. She did not tell her own parents/family about this fact (as at the end she lets Applejack know that she'll do that). For some reason she was willing to tell Applejack and only Applejack about this. I'll ignore why because it doesn't matter, nor does Applejack telling the CMC about it only at the most convenient ''of times. When Diamond Tiara decides to bully the CMC, Babs joins in on the bullying to keep her relief in tact. The CMC try to defend themselves, but go too far. These are pretty much the facts. Okay, so, what's my problem? Let's start with Babs never shows any remorse. Considering that she has been bullied she knows that bullying hurts, and the damage that it could do, and I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that she has a capacity for empathy. Babs does not show any remorse for her knowingly harmful actions until after she gets caught, which even sociopaths do. Also, the episode forgets to call her out on not only doing a wrong action, but ''knowingly doing a wrong action. Instead, the CMC are the only characters the episode ever puts it in the wrong. Not Diamond Tiara for leading Babs to bullying; not Applejack for withholding vital information; not Babs for bullying. How would I fix this? Well, besides the Applejack gets told and she doesn't believe that someone who has been bullied would turn to bullying route. For the record, I can believe that someone who has been bullied would turn to bullying. What I can't believe is that they would do it without remorse, unless they were too far gone already. A simple change - don't hide information. Babs tries to apologize after she smashes the float, away from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. This humanizes Babs and adds a catalyst (that I can take seriously) to the CMC not telling Applejack about Babs' bullying. It could lead to a two-wrongs don't lead to a right, but with Babs learning that lesson as well. The main problem with the episode is that it tries to humanize a stereotypical bully. While Babs is bullying the CMC, she's just as one-dimensional as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Now, answer me this, if we learn that Diamond Tiara was bullied when she was young, and then the episode instantly forgave her for everything up to and including Flight to the Finish, would you buy it? It's a similar principal here. Another thing that bugs me is that Babs seems to like being a bully. She doesn't just play along with Diamond Tiara (which would have made the episode tolerable), she actively seeks out the CMC to torment them. She also does this while Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon aren't around, which makes the excuse that the episode saddles her with null and void. Why is Babs seen as innocent by the episode? Because she was bullied in Manehattan. By that logic, the CMC are innocent when they finally turn on Babs. Actually, by that logic, they'd be innocent if they started bullying Snips and Snails in order to stop being bullied by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. You see the problem with this episode's logic, right? Now, standing up to your bully is less of a sticking point with me because yes, the CMC go too far. They go way too far as Babs legitimately could have drowned in that river. But the way it's done suggests that you can't stand up to your bully. The episode also shoots itself so hard in the foot that it can no longer walk at the end. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon bully the CMC again... WHILE APPLEJACK IS WATCHING. After Babs goes home, I wonder how that talk is going to go down. Are they going to tell Applejack, and find out that the moral that they learned is bullshit, because her father is rich and is one of their better customers and if she scolded her that might put their business at risk? Actually, considering Flight to the Finish, it seems that they've forgotten the moral altogether. If you want me to buy this moral you need to go all the way and have those two stop bullying the CMC. But because of the scenario up there, they can't do it because it would undermine the moral that they gave us: telling an adult is always the correct situation. You know, unless the bully has a rich or affluent parent, the bully puts on an innocent facade, etc. If you think that I'm taking this too seriously, I'm sorry, but bullying is a serious topic, and if you're not going to do it perfectly, don't do it at all. I can't accept "The average" here, because "the average" is wrong. You know what, switch this episode with Boast Busters. It's way worse, song or not. No, Dragon Quest is still worse... and much more incompetent. And if you don't think my insights/experience on bullying is out of the norm, just read the comments on my review. I'm not the only one with this story. It's nice to give a hopeful message (Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3) but sometimes hopeful can backfire (One Bad Apple). Category:Miscellaneous